


Puttin' on the Ritz

by DrGaybelGideon



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Or how he puts on his face in the morning!, Prompt: Frederick Chilton's daily routine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 11:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7888885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrGaybelGideon/pseuds/DrGaybelGideon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frederick looks at his reflection and reflects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

If anyone had told Frederick Chilton he’d be getting up at 6AM every morning to put in his teeth, fill a pothole in his face with liquid latex then apply a further four layers of tar-like foundation over the top of it, his past self would probably have sarcastically prayed for the bullet to alter its ‘miracle’ trajectory path.  
That’s a thought he tends to avoid, probably for its habit of making him stop and stare into the mirror at the scars on his stomach and chest.  
Debate.  
  
No.  
  
Teeth.  
His eye’s a little less inhuman now, hideous drooping of his face undone by the miracles of modern prosthetics.  
Appearance back to normal once his contact’s been tremblingly pushed onto the unseeing surface of his eye.  
He’s not scared of himself, it’s his body waking up a lot slower than his mind on these early mornings.  
  
Liquid latex.  
Hairdryer. Ignore the numb patches where heat doesn’t bother affecting his dead nerves.  
Coffee, which oddly enough stops his shaking hands.  
Getting there.  
  
First layer.  
Red lipstick, of all things, to cover the purple-black colour of the bullet wound.  
(Freddie Lounds of all people taught him that one, drunk enough in a bar to reveal a dark tattoo on her forearm.)  
Still a discomfortingly blood-like colour on that part of his face.  
  
Second layer.  
White face paint.  
White on red is far too gory looking, speeds his hands to apply the next layer.  
  
Third layer.  
A foundation slightly too dark for his skin, blending oddly on top of the white.  
It’s the same colour as his stomach scar, he smiles darkly.  
 _Thank you very much Doctor Gideon for the colour chart._  
He’d thank him personally with a punch if his patient wasn’t dead and limbless, begrudgingly admit the scar’s a perfectly neat line now the trauma surrounding it’s died down a little.  
Funny how trauma paints the past in a rosier light.  
  
Fourth layer.  
The same colour as his surrounding skin, swept over his unscarred skin and checked religiously until his entire face is exactly the same shade.  
As good as new, aside from a slight lilt of voice caused by cheeks dragging over new teeth.  
  
A moment of reflection, both mental and physical.  
He can do this. He’s survived.  
Survived Hannibal and Gideon, a gunshot to the face.  
‘Cockroach’ is the word most often smirked at him by Matthew Brown now, a word that’s slowly losing a sting Frederick probably only imagined being there.  
He is a cockroach, small and underfoot and hideous, a strange twisted creature frightening by appearance to his peers.  
But necessary. Nessescary and needed, and determined to outlast everyone around him. Unkillable.  
‘Hannibal The Cannibal’, by The Unkillable Frederick Chilton, he smiles to himself. A ridiculous title. Completely unsellable.  
He’ll talk to his publisher later.


	2. Chapter 2

Frederick‘s always thought he’d outgrown religion. Given it up like Santa and the easter bunny, a pleasant childhood memory he’d cast off like small dungarees and socks for a child’s feet.  
He’s appreciating elements of it more with age and trauma, and arrives at his own personal purgatory armed with flowery crosses to ward off the horror of John Hopkins hospital, a vampire that’s claimed far more than its fair share of his blood.  
  
He’s got a connection to Will Graham running the length of his abdomen which allows him to ignore the bitterness in what’s left of his stomach. The other man’s still good looking, a piece of driftwood who’s somehow managed to be sucked too far into Hanibal’s vortex and live to tell the tale with minimal scarring. Unfair.  
Will Graham is driftwood with still sharp edges. Perhaps he’s smug with himself, still views himself as the cleverest man in the room for rejecting Frederick’s flowers and offers of help. Perhaps the lines between his own psyche and Hannibal’s have blurred so thickly he views everyone else as inferior, in which case Frederick’s quite glad to have been turned down. He leaves the flowers anyway. Hopes he’s allergic to part of the bouquet.  
  
Alana’s a colleague, a fellow psychiatrist he couldn’t help but admire in a slightly mocking manner. Too soft on patients, not cunning enough to win secrets from them in a game of mental chess.  
She’s been cold hostile iron towards him since Gideon, a dislike not even his old patient could summon in her directed towards him every time they lock eyes. She denies his help with an oddly triumphant smile. Martyr. Perhaps she’s still too in love with Hannibal Lecter to aid him in bringing the man down.  
He leaves the flowers with a small, slightly sarcastic prayer that they won’t be lillies next time as he walks away.  
  
He doesn’t mention lillies to Jack when he visits. The indomitable Bella Crawford’s apparently taken a turn for the worst, he’s told through slighty snarling teeth, and he should leave so they can spend their final moments.  
He should have brought two sets, or at least left this one, he shuffles the ribbon holding them together, an uncharacteristically obvious display of anxiety in his hands.  
  
He’s not discussing what happens at the Verger home. Represses it determinedly. Reapplies makeup and latex to the face that at least he still has, stabbing setting powder onto his face like it will harm the bastard who forced him to strip with each jab of bristles on still-sore skin. Sits in his car and watches Alana Bloom still pretty still perfect being invited in with open arms through a stable gate.  
Allies.  
  
He’s got his trademark. He’s got Freddie Lounds, his strange blood-bound comrade in arms who he wouldn’t trust as far as he could throw if they weren’t working towards a common goal. Hannibal’s capture, and the career defining fame that would bring. Her website, his money, $250 dollars per reliable hint to the other man’s whereabouts.  
He’s curious to see which of their little ‘scarred man with ruthless female’ teams will catch Hannibal’s scent first.


End file.
